oa Two Centuries of Midrash Study: A Survey of Some Standard Works on Rabbinic Midrash and its Methods

This paper offers an overview and discussion of some standard works about the study of midrash and its methods, starting with the Wissenschaft des Judentums in the 19th century. Isaac Heinemann was the first to present a more or less complete survey of midrashic method in his work Darkhe haAggadah (1949). But Heinemann himself already stood in a tradition of midrash study, initiated by Leopold Zunz in his seminal work Die gottesdienstlichen Vorträge der Juden historisch entwickelt (1832). Two relatively recent works retrace the footsteps of Heinemann, i.e. Jonah Fraenkel’s, Darkhe haAggadah vehaMidrash (1991) and Daniel Boyarin’s, Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash (1990). In addition to these works, other relevant studies about the subject are discussed briefly.